


My Crystal Ball Says You're Full of Sh*t

by brightmoonprincess, phazonprincess



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: AU, Alchemy, F/F, Magic, Modern, Potions, Werecat, Witches, early 2000s, sorcery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25636531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightmoonprincess/pseuds/brightmoonprincess, https://archiveofourown.org/users/phazonprincess/pseuds/phazonprincess
Summary: People are disappearing in Whisperwood. Anxiety stirs throughout the magical woodland town, and folks are claiming to have seen a werecat stalking the night. Glimmer, the local sorceress of the small town, has since stayed out of its affairs, thinking it was all a mass hysteria, but is forced to intervene when these 'kidnappings' affect her more directly. However, discovering the truth sets off a chain of events that not even the wisest of seers could have foreseen.tldr: Witch!Glimmer & Were!Catra shenanigans in an early 2000s small woodland town AU
Relationships: Catra/Glimmer (She-Ra)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 34





	My Crystal Ball Says You're Full of Sh*t

_… Bong! … Bong! … Bong! … Bong! … Bong! … Bong!_

Six o’ clock. Ordinarily, it’s a sign to come inside for dinner or to not forget your laundry on the clotheslines. Lately, however, it has served as a sign of terror to shutter your windows and stay inside until dawn. The chimes of the clock tower rang through the town and well into its nearby forest, the echoes of its bells bouncing off the trees, seemingly coming alive with the vibrations, and even reaching the stone cottage that dwelled within it. Its owner wasn’t concerned with the events that would transpire at the nearby town, as she kept a ward up to prevent any unwanted visitors, but it would be wrong to say that she didn’t _care_ about it. It affected her business, after all. If no one’s alive to buy potions, well… she won’t sell any potions. Simple as that.

 _Tap. Tap, tap tap._ Glimmer repeatedly hit her open book with the back of her pen, taking a deep breath of distress as she slung her head back against the recliner. _Why can’t I figure this out?!_ she thought to herself, unable to identify why the components of her spell weren’t adding up properly. Not once, but twice, an incantation failed to resolve due to negligence in her materials and she couldn’t assess why. It was uncommon for her to fumble in her sorcery _at all_ let alone twice in a row, and she hated failure more than anything. Was she simply fated to never be able to enact the spell of future sight? It was such an unheard practice by _real_ spellcasters, and not just fake prophets and seers trying to shortchange some poor bastard. The books say it can and has been done, some of the more renowned sorcerers foreseeing—and preventing!—catastrophe across the nation throughout history. 

Some day.

Today, however, Glimmer faced the ongoing hysteria known only as the Night Crawler, supposedly stealing people in the night, correlating with the sudden increase in missing persons in nearby areas. Nobody could identify what was going on, but it was unanimously observed that these disappearances would only happen in the depths of the night, occasional screams heard in the wee hours.

The town of Whisperwood’s inhabitants were so disconnected from the rest of civilization, happily functioning off of very little. Sure, there were dirt roads, water tanks, and electricity lines that spanned all the way out here from the distant highways, not making it impossible to get in touch with folks in the city, but few ever traveled there, and fewer ever wanted to. Folks were happy to live peacefully in their close-knit community, or they _would_ if things weren’t so tense right now. Them being so far from the city however meant that they were _also_ distant enough to not really matter to any government officials that might otherwise investigate these disappearances. It was up to the community on its own to get to the bottom of it, but it felt like no one was driven enough to figure out what was happening.

Day in and day out, Glimmer was concocting batch after batch of protective potions, dubbing it the ‘Sword of Whisperwood,’ a nod to the town’s historical crest of the fighter, She-Ra. She was said to have protected the realm during its inception, granting its inhabitants perpetual peace. Or something outlandish like that. It made for a _great_ sales pitch. ‘It’ll pierce any foes who try to strike you!’ and ‘Let it cut down your enemies!’ were the go-tos that worked almost every time. Its potent effects were a nice bonus, too, allowing the host who consumes it to elicit an emanating aura of Good to ward off the effects of dark magic, effectively granting them immunity to it. She wasn’t sure if that was _the_ solution, but a potential one was better than none at all.

Eventually, the sorceress flung her feet to the ground and let the recliner fold up, snapping her fingers to fabricate the bookmark from the distant table unto her palm, closing her book around it and gently tucking it away on her small library shelf. Another day, perhaps, but as the long hand struck the fifth minute, she began to clear the countertop in anticipation for an appointment she had made with an old friend for a quarter past six.

—

It was another late afternoon where she woke up in the middle of the woods.

There she was, hair more tangled than a swallow’s nest and dried bits of caked, cracking blood dirtying the underside of her claws. As much as Catra wished she could say that she had a wild, fun-filled night of drinking and partying... she knew that wasn’t the case. Granted, it wasn’t a complete impossibility. She had absolutely no memory of those moonlit hours, so who can say for sure?

Catra picked herself up from the soft, springy moss that she had apparently made a bed of, and she winced at the pain that shot through her head, like nettle stinging her temples. _Wow_ , what a headache. Maybe she did end up stealing chugging someone’s spirits at some point, then just went to go nap in the woods. It wouldn’t be out of character. And that would be the best case scenario, quite honestly.

She ran her fingers through her hair, and she groaned aloud at the feeling of it. She normally didn’t care about her appearance, but _no one_ liked being filthy. Thankfully, after a month straight of waking up in the middle of nowhere, she had become resourceful. She surprised herself when she realized that she already knew which woods she ended up in. She wondered if that meant she actually did have some control of her own mind, even when it stopped recording memories. However, she worried more so about what that would imply about her morals, if it _was_ true. She shook away the thought and started zig-zagging between the trees.

It didn’t take long to find what she was looking for—a lake with clear, blue waters, tucked away deep into the forest. Catra took off her clothes shamelessly, not that there was anyone around, and she gave them a quick rinse in the water, before laying the loosely fitting outfit atop a rock that was blessed with a direct stream of sunlight.

Normally, she hated baths, but she hated the grime that coated her skin and fur even more. The water was cooler than Catra expected it to be, but she sank her lower body into it anyways. Once acclimated to the temperature, she dunked her head beneath, happy to wash away the reminders of a night she didn’t remember.

She wasn’t the most adept person at recognizing magic, never focusing particularly hard on that subject during school, but the enchantment of the lake was hard to miss. Its ripples twinkled like stars in the sunlight, and the azure color that it reflected didn’t seem quite natural. Even the water itself was more ever so slightly more viscous, as if a soup thickener had been added to it. After a few minutes of floating around in it, Catra noticed her headache had faded away, and the swelling of the scratches on her arms had calmed down. Interesting.

Afterwards, she climbed onto the rock where her clothes laid and stretched out, basking in the warmth. Oh the sweet, sweet sun, her only love, her protector. Why did she ever have to leave?

Catra fell asleep like that, naked and curled on top of the sunlit stone. About an hour later, the sound of bells made her ears twitch, and she awoke with a start.

“... _Shit_ ,” she said to herself, scrambling to pull on her clothing. Six o’clock already?! Great, now she had to hurry.

She sprinted through the woods, jumping over tangles of knotted roots, clearing even the ones that went over her head with ease. The forest eventually opened up to a clearing, and finally, she reached the stone cottage she was searching for. Catra took a deep breath as she stepped down the pathway, lined with what looked to be a bunch of pretty, innocent flowers, but Catra knew better. She pitied the fool who tried to sneak in and pick one of them. It was like a game of russian roulette. Stop and smell the wrong one, and you might be dead within a minute, who knows?

The door that she approached had a rune etched into the wood, a circle lined with non-latin lettering and a pattern of interconnected spirals within it. Catra raised her fist and banged on it.

“Sparkles, it’s me! Open up!” she demanded. Her hastiness could be excused after she got what she came here for.

Not a moment too soon, the hand of her clock ticked over to the third interval as the scattered beat of the door resonated through Glimmer’s humble abode. Yet somehow, it shocked her, sending a jolt of surprise up her spine as she fumbled with a towel she was in the midst of unfolding, now ready for her client as timely as could be. The sorceress vanished from where she stood, materializing in a flash of light before the doorway, then reached for the handle and twisted it before swinging it open, letting nature’s air sweep itself inside. 

There was Catra, surprisingly well-cared for with a face of desperation written across her face. It had been several days since Glimmer saw her, she was almost beginning to worry if _she_ had become one of the missing persons. The witch let off a big, heartfelt smile of relief as she further opened the door.

“Catra!” she exclaimed, as if it were a surprise. “You made it! Get in here,” she concluded, leaving the door open as she began to take her steps back toward the table of materials she had set up ever so delicately. Now with company over, she tossed a few bolts of purple light in various directions to light up a handful of lanterns, possessing their glass forms with a serendipitous glow. It was time to have some fun dissecting _whatever_ it was that Catra wanted from her today. Always paid well, after all.

As nice as it was to see her friend, Catra’s face only hardened further. She made no sound as she walked inside and glanced around the room, now illuminated in a soft violet light. It was almost romantic, ha. The place had such a cozy feel to it, despite being filled with potions that were essentially your wildest dreams in a bottle and thick spellbooks that could make you the baddest witch in the world—or protect you from her.

“Sorry, I don’t really have time to chit-chat,” the feline let her know as she turned around to face Glimmer. “I need the strongest curse-breaker you got, stat. It's an emergency.” She hoped that Glimmer wouldn't ask too many questions. Although, knowing her, she might hear nothing but.

Naturally, of course, Glimmer had many. However, urgency demanded she keep it short, it seemed, given that the sun was about to set for the night. Quite untimely circumstances to need a curse lifted when such occurrences were happening.

“Hah, as if there wasn’t enough going on already,” Glimmer laughed, already stepping over to her bookcase to reach for curse remedies. “Worst time to have something happen to you is when worse is already happening around you,” she added as she flipped the pages, carrying it over to the surface of the table where her ingredients lied. 

“Obviously I can’t work off of nothing—forced honesty? Voices? Magnetism? Are you perhaps _extremely_ and uncontrollably hungry?” she trailed off, randomly listing some of the things she had dealt with over the past few years of her taking residence within the forest off the top of her head. Seriously, just when you thought you’ve seen it all, some guy’s third wife shows up asking why her fingernails aren’t growing and you question why you study so hard.

Little did Glimmer know, Catra probably _was_ the worst thing going on right now. Maybe. Hopefully not. The start of her nighttime amnesia coincided with the first disappearance about a month ago, and neither had stopped since. The only thing she could remember was that every night, she felt a sudden surge of heat and anger. She isn’t sure of it, but Catra thought that she saw her claws elongating and her fur becoming thicker. Her vision never stayed intact long enough to be sure, however. Less than a moment after, she would see nothing but red, as if blood is leaking into her eyes, filling the sockets until she’s blinded by it.

After that, everything went blank.

Catra winced at the ‘uncontrollable hunger’ guess. She really, really, really hoped that it wasn’t that. 

“If it was forced honesty, I would have already told you that you have something in your teeth,” Catra joked.

“What?!” Glimmer exclaimed, instantly vanishing to her vanity and raising her top lip, looking high and low for whatever it was Catra saw. Nothing. _“Ugh,”_ she groaned, meandering back over with a louder step in her walk.

Glimmer’s teeth were completely clean, but Catra thought that maybe it would help to distract her from prying further, since she didn’t want to give too much information to Glimmer. She trusted her, sure, but would Glimmer trust _her_ if the rumors about her were true? What if it didn’t end there, and there were even worse things she had already done? No one could say, so Catra figured that it was in her best interest to keep her mouth shut.

“How about we go with… memory loss? Is there something you can do about that?” she asked.

Glimmer closed the book pretty much instantly. Amnesia remedies might as well have been written on the back of her hand, right next to insomnia and love potions. Those were the three most commonplace issues that were brought to her. Sometimes all at once.

“Yup, two shakes!” she said cheerfully as she flickered behind the feline, yanking a hair from the end of her tail before she could object, reappearing in place before she could even say _‘hey, what the fuck?’_ to her. She reached for her mortar and pestle as she tossed it in, reaching for an herb or two and a small jar of powder that she emptied overtop all of it, then mixed away. 

“No guarantees, yadda yadda stuff I probably don’t need to tell you, but you’ll need to come back to me in a day’s time so I can assess its success,” she bantered, elaborating as briefly as possible the next steps as she ground up the materials. Whispering an incantation to herself, she waltzed over to her sink to collect some water in a jar, swirling it together as her words enchanted it with a lustrous orange hue for but a moment. Her mixture required hot water to dissolve correctly, not uncommon for revitalizing potions or elixirs. When you’re the one house with no electricity for miles, you have to make do when you don’t have a stove. 

Eventually, Glimmer funneled the dust she had ground into the simmering jar of fluid, discoloring it with a vibrant nightshade blue, though its light quickly faded as it settled. She plugged it up with a lambskin cloth and a hair tie that she kept on her wrist, tapping on it to ensure it was taut before aggressively shaking it. Then, before they both knew it, voila. Potion of Remembrance.

Catra sat down and rubbed her freshly plucked tail with an angry pout while she watched Glimmer get to work. It never got old, the way she mixed together potions like it was an art. Catra almost couldn’t remember the days when Glimmer was first starting out, squinting suspiciously at every herb and giving them cautious sniffs, setting off so many explosions that every insurance company refused to give her coverage. Although even then, anyone with eyes could see how deeply talented Glimmer was.

Glimmer slunk the elastic back over her wrist and tossed the cloth to the depths of the sink before she placed it on the table just in front of her feline friend. She gestured to it with her eyes, raising her brows in an ‘all yours’ motion.

Once the jar was placed in front of Catra, its contents mysterious yet beckoning, she downed the drink all in one go. More often than not, these things didn’t exactly taste like sweet pea and honeysuckle. This one went down smoothly, at least, and it wasn’t the worst thing that Glimmer had her drink. She couldn’t even decide if the flavor was pleasant or not. It had a weird, almost musky aftertaste, like bundles of rue covered in turmeric were shoved down her throat. It tasted bittersweet. Like memories usually are, she supposed.

“So don’t get angry, but I may or may not have misplaced my wallet. Put this one on my tab, pwetty pwease?” she requested, clasping her hands together and widening her eyes to look as cute and kitten-like as possible.

While Glimmer was responding, Catra’s stomach gurgled loudly.

The cat’s face twisted into a grimace, and she clutched her sides. An absolute tsunami of nausea and cramping hit her, and it felt like a hurricane was raging inside of her body, its storm of toxins splattering against her organs. Good thing she was already sitting, otherwise she was sure that her legs would have given out.

Somewhere in her mind, behind a door that was being unlocked and pried open, the high pitch of a scream made her ears twinge with pain. The blood on her hands was warm and freshly scarlet. The moonlight was bright. These memories felt more like ghosts, and they passed by like figures in her peripheral vision, vanishing before she could fully see anything. Could these even be called memories? They didn’t feel like her own.

Catra warned, “Ah, fuck, hold on, I think I’m going to…”

She grabbed the empty jar, held it to mouth, and made a gross, retching sound. 

The magical substance that emerged wasn’t the same as the potion that went in. The jar was now full of pitch-black liquid, bubbling and as thick as sludge. It gave a sickly-sweet smell, as if it was a jar full of melted licorice. Catra wrinkled her nose at it. At least she immediately felt better.

“Er… Is that a normal side effect?” she asked, but she felt like she already knew the answer to that one. Her body—well, not her body, but whatever had control over her body—completely rejected the counter-magic

Glimmer sat there flabbergasted, jaw agape somewhat as she witnessed the failure of her potion. For a few seconds, she felt a blistering rage, already having been on a ‘losing’ streak throughout the day. She questioned rapidly what could have gone wrong to cause it to so viscerally be unaccepted, and so quickly no less. Whatever magic was present in Catra was extremely volatile and demanded a much more intensive approach.

“... No, it’s not,” she so matter-of-factly answered anyway, furrowing her brows as she reached forward to clutch the jar of blackened goop. She immediately reached below her desk for a lid to seal it, on the off chance that it had had any airborne contagion, then began to examine it further. It ran so syrupy against the glass it was contained in as she swayed the bottle from one side to the next, laser-focused as thoughts ran like a bullet train through her head.

It wasn’t the first time a protection potion failed, though the previous occurrences were in a much smaller magnitude, and none nearly this immediate. She was absolutely certain with her measurements—it was the perfect formula for what she was trying to accomplish—so why did it fail? What incredulous magic could deny _her_ marvel and precision? Well, she supposed an amnesia spell wouldn’t have given such a guttural, physical denial to this, so perhaps it was time to try out other methods, though unbeknownst to her, the clock was still ticking.

“Okay, I’m going to try an elevated spell to try and exorcise whatever caused _this_ ,” she said, finally placing the warm sludge back on the table. “Hell if I know what it is yet, but amnesia certainly isn’t it. You don’t have anywhere to be, do you?” she asked as she began to meander over to a cabinet containing some more off-limits materials that were only meant for serious occasions. Fragments of crystals, wings of rare insects, spell-preserved remains of those long-deceased, that sort of thing.

Catra paled, her cheeks becoming washed-out moons. Great, the situation really was just as terrible as she thought. Her nervousness spiked as Glimmer sang a spell to unlock the cabinet, and she shot a look towards the clock. About six-thirty. The sun set at around eight, barring any otherworldly intervention. From the way Glimmer’s lips pursed and her eyebrows furrowed, Catra had a feeling this puzzle was going to take a while to solve.

“Actually, I do. Gotta meet up with Scorpia,” the cursed feline lied. She hadn't been Scorpia in weeks, either. With sunset nearing, she was already cutting it close. Plus, she had no way of knowing how Glimmer would react to seeing her as… whatever she became, and she didn’t want to take that risk. “I can head over first thing in the morning?”

“Oh,” Glimmer said abruptly, somewhat annoyed as she turned with a handful of miscellaneous parts and pieces of… whatever. The cabinet door shut and locked behind her, its latch resonating through the tiny cabin as Glimmer stepped back toward the table. “Okay, well… sure, come back in the morning and hope I have something, I guess,” she dismissively proposed. _This might actually be better,_ Glimmer thought, now with some time to study whatever this filth was before concocting anything concrete. She could get a better understanding of it to more effectively handle it. Well, with a higher guarantee of safety at least, hopefully.

“Stay inside tonight—oh, and tell Scorpia I still need that tuning fork when you see her,” she added, falling out of Catra’s interest and back to a book she had lying out on the table, flipping open its pages to where she left off. While she was at it, she lifted her other hand and twirled her fingers, whispering a syllable, causing the front door to creak open gently for her guest.

“Right, your knife and fork, got it,” Catra replied with a lazy wave of her hand as she walked back through the enchanted door. “See you tomorrow.”

Catra calculated enough daylight to make a quick stop in town, if she hurried. She broke into a sprint again, and by taking the trail that led from Glimmer’s place to the outskirts of town, she didn’t have to waste time hurdling past any overgrown tree roots. She couldn’t help but to notice how much more stamina she had, knowing it had everything to do with the sun’s distressing descent. Both her breath and her heartbeat stayed at ease, despite her reaching speeds that breached upon unnatural, even for her kind.

The woodland path eventually merged into a larger dirt road, the woods cleared on either side, the town center only a bit further down. The area itself was certainly nothing to write home about, just a few boring-looking buildings lined up in a row, some local necessities and maybe a restaurant or two. _Quaint_ , everyone liked to call it.

No one stayed here looking for retail convenience, anyways. They stayed for the magic. The plants that they imported into the city were nothing compared to the wild vegetation out here, and you could find more power in the ragweed growing on the side of the road. Three days a week, the farmer’s market popped up in the center, where some of the locals sold both magical and nonmagical goods to each other. That attracted the occasional organic-loving sorcerer’s apprentice, but otherwise, they weren’t big on tourism.

As she neared the town center, Catra realized people were finally starting to take the kidnappings seriously. There were usually at least a handful of people around at this time, hanging out or getting last-minute errands done. Now, the sidewalks were worryingly sparse, although a few stores were still open, their neon signs still welcomingly lit up, probably not financially stable enough to prioritize safety over business. Stupid capitalism.

It was risky to do it without a crowd around, but… Catra ended up passing by a couple who were holding hands and too enamored with each other to pay attention to their surroundings. The slippery feline plucked a wallet out of a jacket pocket with ease, and she ducked into a small mom-and-pop home improvement store. Finally, some fucking luck out here.

Nothing to see in here, just a completely normal Magicat gal, not cursed in the slightest, simply buying some rope to tie herself to a tree in the middle of the woods. Normal stuff—in this town, arguably true. Catra found a coil of rope among some miscellaneous supplies and went to pay.

“Night Crawler? Ha! I ain’t afraid of no kidnappers _or_ monsters,” the cashier boasted, though Catra never asked. “I think it’s all a hoax to make the prime minister look bad.”

Catra definitely didn’t have time to listen to conspiracy theories that were possible about her, so she just nodded along and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Despite the gaudy title, the ‘prime minister’ was really just the mayor of their rural town. His supporters were vocal and obnoxious, and he had questionable ideals, but none of them ever came to fruition The real influencers of the town were its top sorcerers, like Glimmer and her family, so the prime minister could spew whatever nonsense he wanted. It sounded like he was on a weird power trip, but Catra didn’t care enough about politics to get into all that.

She bolted back outside as soon as she could. Running through the town would look suspicious, but as soon as she was back on the dirt road, she took off again, heading back into the forest.

In the moments she would feel her mind going blank, she knew it was becoming just that. Blank. She had a feeling that her wild, amnesic self was incapable of untying a knot. Hopefully that hunch was correct. That's what everyone in the movies did, right? Might as well give it a shot.

Here's to hoping she didn't wake up tomorrow covered in dried blood, again.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! let us know what you think of this in the comments! <3


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